Abstract – This paper presents a methodology to design interoperable lean, agile, resilient, and green industrial ecosystems based on axiomatic design. The main objective is to develop a systematic approach to support the detailed design of collaborative business platforms that are able to deliver high level of interoperability, as measured by the expanded business interoperability quotient measurement model. To achieve this objective, axiomatic design is employed to develop the “ideal” cooperation configuration by defining and aligning a set of functional requirements necessary to establish an effective and efficient cooperation among networked organizations. The applicability of the developed methodology is tested through an application scenario of implementing reverse logistics among an automaker focal firm and its upstream partners, as well as some external stakeholders. Keywords – business interoperability, industrial ecosystems, LARG, axiomatic design, reverse logistics I. INTRODUCTION Collaborative industrial ecosystems (IE) continuously face the need for finding and establishing new cooperation arrangements in order to maximize the efficiency of existing resources. IEs are complex and involve a number of actors, each one with its organizational structure, business goals, management approach, business processes, culture and work methods and information systems (IS). Therefore, there is a need to align these different issues when high levels of interoperability are required, as for example when networked organizations are aiming at implementing lean, agile, resilient and green (LARG) management practices that interconnect across the various participants in IE. This implies the arrangement of a set of interoperability factors among the involved actors. In this context, we propose an axiomatic-based methodology to describe how networked organizations can establish cooperation mechanisms to implement interoperable management practices. Interoperable management practices are defined as those that require the interaction of two or more organizations in their implementation. This paper presents an application scenario related to reverse logistics (RL) The paper is organized as follows: Section two reviews the key topics of this research, namely business interoperability, collaborative LARG industrial ecosystems, axiomatic design (AD) and RL. Section three presents a proposal for the design of an interoperable RL network. Section four provides a brief discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the presented methodology. At last, conclusions and paths for future work are presented. II. LITERATURE REVIEW: KEY TOPICS A. Business interoperability Business interoperability is considered as the organizational and operational ability of an enterprise to cooperate with its business partners and to efficiently establish, conduct and develop information technology (IT)-supported business with the objective of creating value [1]. In this context, interoperability and business interoperability frameworks proposed by ATHENA [2, 3], the European interoperability framework (EIF) [4], ECOLEAD [5], levels of information systems interoperability (LISI) [6], levels of conceptual interoperability framework (LCIF) [7], interoperability developments for enterprise application and software (IDEAS) [8] and business interoperability quotient measurement model (BIQMM) [9], contributed to this area giving clues of what are the aspects of business cooperation that must be achieved to obtain the “optimal interoperability”. The role of these frameworks in the current work is to provide the main guidelines to decompose business activities into the business interoperability parameters (BIP) perspective. B. LARG industrial ecosystems Collaborative networks or IEs are a collection of heterogeneous organizations with different competences, but symbiotic interests that join and efficiently combine the most suitable set of skills and resources (knowledge, capital, assets, etc.) for a period of time in order to achieve a common objective, and make use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to coordinate, develop and support their activities” [10]. The term LARG is used to describe the combination of lean, agile, resilient, and green paradigms. The focus of lean paradigm has essentially been on the cost minimization and waste elimination [11] for increasing added value, in order to fulfill customer’s needs while maintaining profits [12]. Unlike lean, the focus of agile paradigm is the ability of comprehension and rapid response to market changes, in terms of volume and variety [11, 12]. Resilience is related to both the individual and organizational responses to turbulence and discontinuities [13]. The green paradigm is concerned with the reduction A Methodology for Designing an Interoperable Industrial Ecosystems, using the Axiomatic Design Theory I. Cabral 1 , P. Espadinha-Cruz 1 , A. Grilo 1 , A. Gonçalves-Coelho 1 , A. Mourão 1 1 UNIDEMI, Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica e Industrial, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologi a, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal (corresponding author: i.cabral@campus.fct.unl.pt) 978-1-4799-0986-5/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE